A01=Christoph Reuter
Abdullah Ocalan
Abu Kabir
Al-Mahdi
Al-Manar
Al-Qaeda
Ansar al-Islam
Armed Islamic Group of Algeria
Assassination
Assassins
Ata'ollah Mohajerani
Aum Shinrikyo
Author_Christoph Reuter
Axis of evil
Bigamy
Category=JPWL
Chemical weapon
Combat
Conspiracy theory
Defensive jihad
Ehud
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Fatah
Firearm
Firearm (tool)
God
Grand Mufti
Gush Katif
Hamas
In This World
Iranian Revolution
Islam
Islamism
Israelis
Jihad
Jihadism
Kamikaze
Karbala
Khaled Mashal
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Lumpenproletariat
Martyr
Military occupation
Mujahideen
Muslim
Muslim world
On Killing
On War
Operation Grapes of Wrath
Osama bin Laden
Palestinians
Quran
Reprisal
Ruhollah Khomeini
Saddam Hussein
Saleh
Shakib Arslan
Sharia
Shia Islam
Shining Path
State within a state
Suicide attack
Taliban
Terrorism
The Deed
The Islamist
The Oligarchs
The Other Hand
The Power of the Powerless
Timur
War
War on Terror
Warfare
Weapon
Product details
- ISBN 9780691126159
- Weight: 312g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 24 Apr 2006
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
What kind of people are suicide bombers? How do they justify their actions? In this meticulously researched and sensitively written book, journalist Christoph Reuter argues that popular views of these young men and women--as crazed fanatics or brainwashed automatons--fall short of the mark. In many cases these modern-day martyrs are well-educated young adults who turn themselves into human bombs willingly and eagerly--to exact revenge on a more powerful enemy, perceived as both unjust and oppressive. Suicide assassins are determined to make a difference, for once in their lives, no matter what the cost. As Reuter's many interviews with would-be martyrs, their trainers, friends, and relatives reveal, the bombers are motivated more by how they expect to be remembered--as heroic figures--than by religion-infused visions of a blissful life to come. Reuter, who spent eight years researching the book, moves from the broken survivors of the childrens' suicide brigades in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, to the war-torn Lebanon of Hezbollah, to Israeli-occupied Palestinian land, and to regions as disparate as Sri Lanka, Chechnya, and Kurdistan.
He tells a disturbing story of the modern globalization of suicide bombing--orchestrated, as his own investigations have helped to establish, by the shadowy Al Qaeda network and unintentionally enabled by wrong-headed policies of Western governments. In a final, hopeful chapter, Reuter points to today's postrevolutionary, post-Khomeini Iran, where a new social environment renounces the horrific practice in the very place where it was enthusiastically embraced just decades ago.
Christoph Reuter is a reporter and international correspondent for the German magazine "Stern".
